Elizabeth's Email
by Jenwryn
Summary: Elizabeth/John. First in my MegAU. Elizabeth has been feeling overworked, when McKay and Sheppard find a new device with interesting possibilities. My first fan fiction, ever! Edited July 2008.
1. Mind Over Matter

_A/N: All recognisable characters and settings belong to the creators of Stargate Atlantis. Apart from that - this is/was the first piece of fanfiction I ever wrote! So treat it kindly, if you'd be so sweet._

* * *

**I: Mind Over Matter**

* * *

The night sky over Atlantis was a thing of remarkable beauty. Eternally broad and black, and pierced with an uncountable quantity of stars, it hung above the city and curved down on all sides to melt into the ocean. But, beautiful or not, from where Elizabeth Weir was sitting with her head bent over her laptop and an expression of exhausted concentration upon her face, there was no way that she could see it. Oh, technically there were the windows opening out onto the balcony – but there was also a never-ending list of things needing to be done. Each day seemed to add more items, like a sort of self-increasing monster, and she had begun to feel a little like the headmistress at an under-staffed and under-funded School for the Gifted. It was as though all the best brains from Earth had been gathered under her guidance – which they had – and as though each and everyone one of them thought that his or her job was the most important and their brain the most valuable – which they did. And so there was always something for her to see or to do, always permission to be granted for this or that.

Elizabeth sighed, gave up on the email that she had been typing, pressed _save draft_ instead of _send_, and then rolled her chair away from the desk and stood up, pushing both her hands hard against the small of her back and arching forwards. The dull ache caused by being stuck behind a desk for so many hours was becoming unpleasantly familiar, while the mess of mugs stained with coffee and lipstick, scattered around her laptop, reminded her sourly of just how long it was since she'd had a solid night's sleep. With a wry smile she recalled the alternate Elizabeth – the Elizabeth who had spent so many thousands of years asleep in the bowels of the city with the single goal of saving them all – telling her to _savour the moment, enjoy the moment, live the moment_. Easier said than done. Recently it seemed as though most of the moments she was living were simply too tedious and overworked to be genuinely enjoyed or savoured. That, or they were completely out of control. Like this morning, when she had found John and a group of marines playing handball in the gateroom right when a delegate from a newly-allianced planet was arriving. How good _that_ had looked!

John… Sometimes she didn't know what she was going to do with him and yet whom else could she bear having as her head military man? And then there was that quirky, self-assured smirk of his, and his mussed up hair, and – she blinked and ran a hand across her eyes. Enough John-thoughts already. It was definitely high time to put herself to bed.

* * *

It felt as though she had barely shut her eyes when the sound of an urgent voice from her radio tugged her back into the land of the conscious. She had been too tired to undress properly and so now she struggled awake in t-shirt and panties amidst a mess of bed sheets and searched, with her eyes only half-open, for the headset from which the voice was coming from. 'Weir,' she said, both shortly and somewhat groggily, when she finally had the device in her hands, although, even to her own ears, the statement of her name came out more as a yawn than an acknowledgement. McKay, to whom the voice naturally belonged, didn't seem to have noticed her lack of attention. In fact, he hadn't even stopped talking. '…seriously, Doctor Weir,' his voice continued, 'this is something you are going to want to see… Elizabeth? Are you there? Are you listening to me?'

She tried to find her watch, but it wasn't where she usually put it. 'Rodney,' she managed. 'What time is it?'

There was a disappointed pause from Rodney's end, speaking volumes about his sudden recognition – and dour opinion of – her lack of awareness. She could hear him mutter something to someone (possibly himself; this _was _Rodney) before answering, grudgingly, 'Half past three in the morning.'

So she really _had_ only just shut her eyes. Elizabeth fought down a groan. The problem with Rodney was that he seemed to run perfectly efficiently on caffeine alone – and, she suspected darkly, the odd stimulant begged from the infirmary sometimes – which wasn't really a problem in itself, except that he also seemed perfectly incapable of understanding that other people might actually require genuine sleep.

By now, however, she was mostly awake again, and had even found her watch (it had fallen beneath the pillows). He was right about the time. She sighed. Rodney's silent impatience was growing tangible so she gave in and said the words she knew he was dying to hear: 'Alright, Doctor McKay. I'll be there in fifteen minutes. Just let me take a shower first. And – Rodney?'

'Hmm?' he mumbled, excited at the prospect of showing whatever he'd found off to her, but his mind obviously already a few miles away from the fact that he still had her on the radio.

She rolled her eyes. 'It had better be good.'

'Oh, it is,' he positively chirped. 'Trust me.'

That she had to smile at, but said nothing except, 'Weir out.'

A short time later she was showered and dressed and on her way to the labs. Rodney, she knew, would be counting down the minutes.


	2. Research

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**II: Research  
**

* * *

The lab, which McKay was currently using, was one that Colonel Sheppard and his team had only recently discovered and given the scientists the all clear to start poking around in, so Elizabeth wasn't really surprised to find John hocked back in a chair, with his feet on a bench, when she arrived. The marines lounging around in the hall outside the lab, however, had been a little more unexpected. She raised her eyebrows pointedly as she came through the sliding doors into the lab and John, who had been _almost_-dozing, took just one look at her expression and read her mind as usual. Jerking his thumb towards the door, which was now humming shut behind her, he said, rather laconically, 'Back up. Just in case.'

Raising one of her eyebrows a little further, she half smiled and repeated questioningly, 'In case…?'

'In case―' John swung his boots down off the bench and stood up as he spoke. 'In case McKay's new toy here actually works. That's if,' he added with a teasing grin, 'it actually does what he says it does.'

With his pride miffed and his impatience level breached, McKay had begun making annoyed _yes, yes _noises and now he motioned Elizabeth over to the bench were he was working. All around him an army of laptops and coffee mugs was cluttered, and scores of electronic devices that Elizabeth, despite being quite computer savvy herself, wasn't even going to hazard a guess at the use of. A half-eaten sandwich balanced precariously on the very edge of the bench, near his elbow, and she couldn't help herself – she simply had to poke it back out of harm's way with a pencil. She smiled at herself wryly, the headmistress image springing back to mind. Maybe 'mother' would be more accurate. John, who had noticed both the smile and the sandwich, began a mime of Rodney in the background, which she did her best to (a) pretend she couldn't see and (b) pretend she didn't find funny. The Colonel had his most appealing smirk on again however and, as he gave up the mime and ran a hand back through his scruffy, dark hair, she knew that he saw through her completely.

Trying to focus her attention back on McKay – who had started to shift, in irritation, from his right foot to his left – she pushed John out of her mind. McKay noticed and beamed. Now that she thought about it, the very cheerfulness itself that was radiating from the physicist made Elizabeth a little nervous. When McKay got that happy, trouble had a habit of following rapidly…

'So,' she said calmly. 'Tell me what I'm looking at, Rodney. And make it good.'

John, who now stood behind her and Rodney, said, with a grin in his voice, 'Oh, it's good.'

McKay nodded in agreement. 'It's good all right. It's good like, oh, I don't know, like perhaps _McKay is a genius_ kind of good, or _McKay gets to keep all of the coffee in Atlantis_, that kind of good.'

Elizabeth struggled to keep a straight face (there was a slight chance that she had moved beyond tired into light-headed) and she could actually _feel _John chuckling behind her. He had leant forwards to get a better look himself and the heat from his body radiated through her clothes onto her skin. _He oughtn't really be so close_, she told herself firmly and yet, she had the unwelcome urge to step back against him. _Elizabeth: focus!_

'Okay, so we've established that it's good,' she commented with a slight smile. 'And I presume we are talking in the realms of defence here, seeing as how you've got the Colonel all worked up about it?'

'Oh, yes, we're talking defence. This little baby—' Rodney picked up one of the gadgets from his bench, a small, blue sphere which fit neatly into his palm. '―might be the answer to all our problems. My theory? Mind-control. This is a mind-control device. I mean, it makes sense, right? We know the Ancients were big into Ascension. So it's _reasonable _to theorise that they were involved in other areas of psycho-research-stuff. Now, shrink-things aren't really my field, but I believe that if I pushed the right buttons―' He squeezed the sphere lightly and a whole array of Ancient symbols lit up over its surface. '―then I could have the entire population of this planet at my beck and call in, oh, let's just say a smaller time frame than you could think of.'

'_If _you can get it to do what you want,' broke in John's voice.

Just for a second his body pressed full against Elizabeth's, as he leant forwards and flicked the sphere in Rodney's hand with a long, slender finger. Elizabeth bit her lip, glanced back towards John fleetingly, and then said to Rodney, 'He has a point. You seem pretty sure that this thing does what you says it does.'

'Oh, it _does_.'

She paused. 'May I ask how you know? You said once that the Ancients weren't exactly good at writing instruction manuals. Am I to take it that this was an exception?'

For a second, Rodney looked almost embarrassed. 'Actually, this was kind of an accident. I was playing around with it and suddenly Zelenka started agreeing with everything I said which, believe you me, was a bit unusual so―' He suddenly noticed her expression, the one that said quite clearly: _Rodney, I'm waiting, so cut through it. _He stopped, drew breath, and then started again. 'Well, anyway, I must have turned it on without knowing it, but I managed to shut it down. Luckily it was pre-set to work over such a low area. Radek wasn't very happy, I don't know why, I might have had some fun, but no―' He glanced at Elizabeth. She was getting that expression again, and she knew it, but it simply wasn't the right time of night to be imagining what sort of things Rodney might find amusing to do to someone he had total control over. McKay huffed, and tried one last time. 'Any rate, it's a complex piece of technology. I'm only beginning to understand it.'

Which meant, in Rodney terms, that he had absolutely no idea what he was doing. Fine. Elizabeth moved gently against the bench, and Sheppard stepped away from her slightly. She turned her head and looked at him steadily. 'And you think this is be a good idea? I suppose it's possible that if we could control the Wraith…' There was no need to finish the sentence.

John was triumphant. '_Exactly._ Problem solved.' Then he grinned. 'Besides, McKay promised that if I helped, he'd let me test it on him.'

'He did, did he?' For a second Elizabeth almost gave herself the liberty of echoing his grin, but turned instead back to Rodney – who was looking highly indignant and was probably about to launch into a lengthy diatribe about how he had promised no such thing – and asked calmly, 'Just clarify for me why, as much as this is possibly the most important discovery we've made so far, you couldn't wait until morning to tell me about it?'

Rodney almost had the decency to look sheepish, but mostly just seemed surprised that she was even asking. He shrugged, 'I thought you'd want to know.'

She breathed in. He was probably right. 'Yes. Keep up the good work.'

Sliding out from between John and the bench, her hands brushing his jacket as he turned, Elizabeth moved to leave the lab. She had actually reached the door when she stopped, cocked an eyebrow at John and asked, 'Tell me. Just _how _exactly might the marines be useful as back-up in this case?'

John's chuckled and his eyes lit up like a mischievous little boy's. 'Actually, I can't see them being any use at all. But if I get no sleep, some of them should suffer too. Just—' he paused and gave her one of those looks that made her wonder exactly what went on inside his head '—don't tell them that.'

This time Elizabeth couldn't help but smile back.


	3. The Sound of Trouble

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**III: The Sound of Trouble  
**

* * *

Awake early, with the vague idea of completing the email that she had half-typed the night before, Elizabeth was cradling a cup of coffee and making her way to her office when John suddenly appeared from a side corridor. 'Hey,' he said in greeting and, to her disgust, didn't look even _remotely _as though he'd been awake all night. Perhaps it was all the dozing he did during the day that kept him up and running.

'Hey yourself,' she answered with a smile. 'I'd offer you a coffee but I've only got the one. How's McKay's gadget getting on?'

John shrugged. 'You know McKay. He likes to pretend he knows everything under the sun, but he's finally caved in and found somebody, who speaks better Ancient than he does, to assist him. So now he and that little redhead – Meaghan, I think her name is – are working on deciphering it all. He was going to call you, of course, but I figured you already had enough to do. Besides…' The Colonel allowed himself a very devious smile. 'I think he likes her, even if she's not blonde.' He glanced at Elizabeth sideways and then added, with a wink and a smile, 'Not that you're not our top linguist.'

She laughed. 'Thanks, but I'm hardly the top of anything much at all around here; the city is simply crawling with people better qualified than I am. But, though it would have been interesting, I'm sure, you're right about me having enough on my plate. Sometimes I think I need a holiday, but then I think of all the work that would pile up while I was gone and… ugh.' She shuddered, and sipped her coffee.

John shot her a sympathetic grin that made her chest tighten. Perhaps a holiday in his company would be worth the backlog… she smiled to herself and mentally shook her head. _Don't even go there, Elizabeth. _

They completed the rest of the walk to her office in a blend of companionable silence and aimless small-talk. Elizabeth didn't really feel the need to speak and she enjoyed the flippant one-liners that John tossed in her direction – mostly a running commentary on people they passed, which as leader she wasn't _supposed_ to find funny, anyway. It wasn't the first time they'd walked in the halls like this of a morning. She supposed that he simply had nothing better to do or, which was more likely, that he was simply heading in her direction. Certainly she never felt the desire to hurry him off to his work like she would have done with pretty much anyone else, and she liked to tell herself that he looked forwards to these little strolls as much as she did. Now she cast a glance at him, sideways, and had to admit that she always half-hoped to see him whenever she was making her way down the corridors from one place to another. The sight of him at her side, always so confident and relaxed and cocky, always lifted her spirits somehow.

John left her at the door to her office – after having mock bowed like some crazy kid – and Elizabeth was just finishing off the dregs of her coffee, and contemplating pressing _send _on that awful email, when a familiar sound rang through the city – the sound of trouble. Oh, there were various codes, both military and otherwise, and this particular one was more like a gentle siren than anything else, but they all meant one and the same thing to Elizabeth: problems. That, and the very real possibility that one or more of her people might be in danger.

Despite her concern, under normal circumstances Elizabeth would have stayed at her desk, made a quiet inquiry, and tried to concentrate on her work. After all, it made no sense for her to go running around getting in the way of the professionals, and she would find out all about it at the briefing. This, time though, it hit her with a jolt that the problem was in a lab. The lab with Rodney, and the device that might solve all their problems. Leaving her coffee, and the email, she hurried down the halls.


	4. Impulse

* * *

**IV: Impulse**

* * *

Chaos. Unadulterated chaos.

A medical team stood around in the corridor looking helpless. Laptops had been overturned and cords lay tangled on the floor. It looked, if not like a bomb had been dropped, then at least as though someone had swept a small hurricane in one end of the lab and out the other. That, or the aftermath of a really wild scientists' party... Military types moved around poking at things uselessly and John's marines stood, looking sheepishly embarrassed, in the middle of the room.

Of McKay and his gadget, not a trace was to be seen.

For a second Elizabeth just looked at it all, trying to process exactly what it was she was seeing, and then turned to the nearest person – a woman – and demanded to know what was going on. The girl, an impossibly young scientist who looked completely out of her depth, jerked her shoulders sharply in a frightened shrug. 'I have no idea,' she babbled. 'One second Doctor McKay and Colonel Sheppard were here and the next—'

Elizabeth held up her hand. 'Just a moment. Did you say Colonel Sheppard?' She could hear the fear in her own voice and felt a stab of profound guilt at being more concerned for the status of one of her men over another. Mortified, she added quickly, 'I'm just clarifying.'

The young woman simply nodded. She hadn't noticed Elizabeth's face pale with worry, being, as it were, too concerned with her own worries. 'Yes,' she said. 'Here and then gone, bam! Doctor McKay had been testing the device and then he gave it to me to use. He said—' The girl swallowed, and ran a hand nervously along the blue of her sleeve. Elizabeth suddenly realised that this was the redhead linguist that John had mentioned to her. Of course. Doctor Meaghan Monahan. Six languages, palaeoanthropology, ancient history… She had only arrived in Atlantis one week earlier. Valiantly trying to push away her concern for John, Elizabeth looked intently at the girl and asked, 'Are you alright?'

It was then that she noticed the blue sphere Meaghan clutched so tightly in her hand that her knuckles had gone white around it. Suddenly Elizabeth thought that she understood what might have happened. 'Doctor McKay gave you the sphere to test on them, right? That makes sense, considering you understand the language better than he does, only… I'm somewhat surprised that he would have told you to use it on both of them at the same time.' In case something went wrong. Which it apparently had.

Meaghan looked like she was in the process of waking up into a nightmare. Her voice, when she finally found it, came out strangled. 'He _didn't. _He said I was just to use it on the Colonel, in case there was a problem. But he had been driving me barking mad all morning. He's like that with all of us, he thinks he's being funny and some of the girls seem to like it but it annoys the hell out of me, y'know, he's so damn frustrating, and—' She blinked rapidly from a face covered in freckles, remembered through her confusion who she was talking to, and in what circumstances, and ended lamely, 'I meant it as a joke. He was so sure we had the combination right. I commanded him and the Colonel to leave the room. I just meant for them to go into the hall, you know, but then it was like a storm hit. And I was alone. I must have stuffed something up…' She stared at Elizabeth with enormous eyes. 'I'll be sent back to Earth, won't I?' She looked like she was about to break down, but was scared that if she did, that would really be the final nail in her coffin and was trying, somewhat desperately, to keep herself together.

She needn't have worried. Elizabeth just nodded at her absently. If they sent everyone home when they screwed up, Atlantis would have been empty a few months after they'd found it. And anyway, she'd barely heard a word that the girl had said, simply stared at the sphere and begged fervently that it hadn't somehow read Meaghan's subconscious mind and sent McKay out of existence – and John with him. She knew that the scientist could rub people the wrong way, but he didn't deserve that. And John…

Riding on a wave of impulse, Elizabeth abruptly instructed, with all the authority she could muster, 'Whatever you did with them, do it again with me.'

Meaghan stared at her, and Elizabeth read the stupidity of her order reflected back at her in the girl's astonished eyes. And she knew perfectly well, herself, that it was madness. But she felt that wild desperation that she always felt when she feared John was dead, and it made her soul ache. Not again. She couldn't take it any more. She was too tired.

'Tell Teyla she's in command, like when I went to Earth. Now do it.'

And, probably because she was still in too much shock to think straight herself, Meaghan obeyed.**  
**


	5. Here Instead of There

* * *

**V: Here Instead of There**

* * *

_God_, what a hangover…

She opened her eyes, felt the light slam into them mercilessly, and let her head fall – ever so gently – back against the ground she was laying on. It was like having been kicked in the face and, sadly, she could make the comparison from personal experience. Groaning, she tried raising her head again, registered the sound of voices close by, and then felt hands help her to sit up. A few seconds of wooziness ensued, and then she made out John and Rodney looking at her with a mixture of concern and surprise. Well. More one concerned and the other surprised, actually.

John, who had been the one to help her sit, was crouched on his haunches in front of her and obviously didn't know whether to laugh or yell. 'Hi,' he said in a bemused voice. 'I'm not sure if I'm glad to see you or what.'

Rodney, on the other hand, appeared to have firmly made up his mind on that point already. He was distinctly ruffled and snapped in frustration, '_What _are you doing here, Elizabeth? Aren't you supposed to be back in where we came from, ordering the idiots to get moving and work out where we are? Unless… you already know that?' Her face must have revealed her answer to that question, because he shrugged, annoyed, and added, 'Er, how did you even get here then?'

Elizabeth was still looking at John, still utterly irrational, still overjoyed to see him alive and well. Of course, now that she was reassured on that point, she was beginning to share some of Rodney's obvious doubts about her sanity. The Colonel stood and she let him help her, too, to her feet. Then she shook her head to try and clear it a little, before answering softly, 'Meaghan sent me.'

McKay made a noise like a growl, tossed his hands up in the air and exclaimed, with a glare in John's direction, 'See!? I _told _you that girl was to blame. And to think I actually thought she was vaguely attractive! Never, ever, ever trust a humanity's graduate to do the job of a real scientist!' He wheeled back around to Elizabeth, and glared at her too. 'And why, may I ask, if she can send you here, hasn't she brought us all back? Hmm?'

It was a good question, and one that Elizabeth should have asked herself instead of dwelling on John like a besotted teenager and acting so foolishly. 'I don't know,' she admitted. 'I presume she tried; she was pretty distraught when I spoke to her. She'd only meant for you to leave the room, not come here... wherever here is.' She glanced around for the first time, and fell silent. _Here _was strikingly beautiful. During her career Elizabeth had travelled to some of the loveliest places on Earth, but this was something else. Words couldn't even begin to describe…

'It's wonderful,' she murmured simply, in the end.

John, upon whom she was still leaning, slipped an arm around her shoulders in further support and concurred, almost reverently, 'Yeah, isn't it but?' He looked at her and smiled, then added, 'That's what I was tryingto tell McKay before you showed up. A place this pretty just _has_ to have inhabitants.'

'And what law is that?' mocked McKay. Frustration at their situation was starting to gnaw at him, and the fact that he had arrived without any of his clever, reassuring devices was not making matters any easier. He waved a hand in John's direction. 'Why _must_ it be inhabited? Is that rule three-oh-nine of the John Sheppard universe?'

John shrugged. 'That's just how it is,' he insisted, not really offended but pretending that he was.

'Has it occurred to you that we might not have even left Atlantis?' demanded McKay. 'Obviously I was a little off about the device. I mean, it must be something more than just mind-control. Maybe it _influences_ and this is just a representation in our heads – I mean, Zelenka agreed with me, but I never actually commanded him to do anything. We could be hallucinating.'

'All of us? The same thing? You mean like when the little energy-guys on M5S-224 made us think we were on Earth? But… even then we were all in our own little worlds.' He paused, before murmuring, 'You know I still think about all the stuff I could have done if only I'd _known_...'

McKay shot him a dirty look.

Elizabeth shook her head and broke into their bickering before it could take off properly. 'You're not in the lab anymore, Rodney. At least, not physically. That's how we knew that something had gone wrong. You just… vanished. It looked like a tornado had hit the place.'

Rodney stared at her in even greater astonishment. 'And you thought it was a good idea to join us because?'

Embarrassed, she found no answer to that – at least none she was willing to share with Rodney – but she caught John watching her, and she thought that his arm had tightened its grip on her just a fraction. She wondered if he really did know her so well that he could guess the reason for her actions. She knew that he would have come after _her_, no questions asked. Did he know that she felt the same, that she had to force herself to stay in Atlantis every time she heard he was in danger? Just that this time, her exhaustion had gotten the better of her and she'd acted without thinking?

McKay stomped back and forth in front of them, his brow creased into deep furrows of frustration at not being able to think of anything that could help them. His hands were clenched at his sides, maybe in withdrawal from not having anything technical to put in them, and he looked the picture of misery. Elizabeth shook her head at the sight of him and knew that her actions had simply worsened the problem, but the feel of John's arm on her shoulders was somehow worth it. On the guise of still needing help to stand, she – a woman who would normally have mocked another female for playing the 'helpless' card – slipped her arm around John's waist, fingers brushing his skin above his belt. He glanced at her, eyes narrowing a fraction and turning a shade darker than usual, then glanced away again. It was like that day when she had embraced him in the gateroom, so overjoyed to see him alive that she hadn't cared who knew. He had hugged her back, then, but looked slightly uncomfortable. Was her attention that unwelcome? Or was he just waiting for her to get all her signals straight? After all, she could barely even admit to herself that she might feel something for him. Now, still a little druggy with the euphoria of finding him well, she pressed her hand tighter against him.

'Maybe one of us should walk up that hill?' John suggested. He'd been watching McKay plod back and forth, and it was like being in the audience at a really dull game of tennis. Left, turn, right, turn, left... And now Elizabeth had her arm around him and it was as distracting as hell. He glanced down at the dark curls of her hair and wished that he even began to understand how her head worked.

Rodney kept pacing, acknowledging John's suggestion with nothing more than a brusque wave. Then he glanced up and looked at the pair of them with that expression which clearly said: _go on, do whatever you want. You know I'll be the one who has to get us out of here. _'Okay,' he snapped, 'You walk to the hill. Someone has to stay here and it might as well be me. After all, if they can somehow get me back – and I fail to see how it could be done from this end – then I can get you two back. Where we're standing might be important for all we know. So go ahead, walk up the hill. Maybe we _have_ been sent somewhere else and you can see a stargate and we can simply hop through and go home.' His sarcasm was thick and barbed, but it suddenly dropped away as a more pressing concern hit him. 'Oh, God, do you know that we have no food? Did you bring food, Elizabeth? Do either of you have any food?' He started searching frantically in his pockets for sustenance.

Rapidly making the decision that a walk would have to be better than listening to McKay whinge about hunger pains that there was no way he could _possibly_ be experiencing already, John glanced at Elizabeth questioningly. She answered his look with those eyes of hers, and nodded.

Leaving Rodney to his misery, they had walked half way up the hill before Elizabeth gently disengaged herself from John's hold. It wasn't that she particularly wanted to let go of him, but she was suddenly irritated with the damsel-in-distress routine she'd been pulling and, besides, the ground had grown rougher and it was simply easier if they walked separately. John watched her walking ahead of him, unashamedly admiring the view, and grinned to himself as he followed her.

As though reading his mind, Elizabeth glanced around with a smile and said teasingly, 'I hope you aren't checking out my rear end back there, Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard. It would be _terribly _unprofessional of you.'

It was such an unexpected statement to hear from her lips and was said with such a sparkle in her eyes, that John stumbled at the sound of it. He _never_ expected that sort of thing, why, he didn't know. Rapidly trying to pull his wits back together, he shot a grin at her back and quipped, 'You know, people will talk, what with you jumping in here after Rodney and me like that. Now _that _was unprofessional.'

She glanced at him again, eyes still shining but her face a little pink, and queried oh-so-innocently, 'What makes you think it had anything to do with Rodney?'


	6. Discoveries

* * *

_A/N: The reference to Jesse the cook is a case of me fangirling other fangirls. She's an OFC created by babsji, who kindly gave me permission to mention her in this story. _

* * *

**VI: Discoveries **

* * *

Elizabeth bit her tongue fiercely. She jerked her head back so it was facing forwards, and focussed upon finding secure footholds for her feet. _God, _what had gotten into her? Perhaps someone had slipped something wild into her coffee this morning – and with Jesse in the kitchen, you could never be a hundred percent sure. Desperately she tried to concentrate on where she was putting her boots, but found it hard. It was as though she had lost every single little scrap of her commonsense. First, she comes gallivanting here – wherever here was – as though she were some rookie marine with a hero complex, instead of the leader responsible for the entire expedition. And then, as if that weren't enough, she openly, blatantly, shamelessly flirts with the ranking military officer! Her heart pounded ten to the dozen and she knew that her face had coloured pinkish. She hadn't been this impulsive since she'd been in college – since that business with the bag of oranges, the Irishman, and the Chinese restaurant. To make it all that bit worse, the silence emanating from John was scaring her stupid. They had an optimal working relationship, better than she had ever dared hope given both the circumstances and her history with the armed forces… So why was she jeopardising it now?

Not trusting herself to speak again, Elizabeth walked in fuming silence for the next twenty minutes or so, until, in fact, they had reached the top of the hill. Admittedly, she probably couldn't have talked even if she had wanted to. Although she liked to consider herself physically fit, she had spent too much time behind a desk in the last few years, and the sudden steep incline at the crest, coupled with her nerves and the loose footing, had left her short of breath. Still, her last words to John had been burnt into her mind and she waited, when they reached their destination – half curious, half frightened – to hear his eventual response.

'Well,' he said. 'McKay was right about there not being a stargate in sight.'

Somehow, that was _not_ what she had expected his first words to be, and her face must have revealed something of her emotions because John avoided her gaze and looked at the ground. A second long he just stood there, turning her veins to ice, but then he straightened his shoulders, as though he had reached some kind of decision and, this time, when his eyes met hers, they were soft and dark. He smiled and brushed some wayward curls from her face. 'Elizabeth―' he began and then―

But what he had planned on doing or saying next, she would not know for quite some time, since the entire ground beneath them shook suddenly and violently, and John had to reach out and grab hold of her shoulders to keep them both from falling over. The tremor only lasted a handful of heartbeats, but it was enough for them both to force their feelings to the back seat in the face of more important questions.

'Was that an _earthquake_?' Elizabeth asked, although she already knew the answer.

John looked at where some of the rocks had gone rolling down the hillside and was suddenly glad they had reached the top before it came. 'Sure felt like one.'

All around them it was as though the world had shifted slightly, as though it had come imperceptivity off its proper course. Although Elizabeth couldn't put her finger on it, she sensed that something fundamental had been altered. From the look on his face it was clear that John felt it as well. He kept glancing around in all directions as though searching for something specific.

'Do you think that happens often?' Elizabeth asked, more because she had to say _something, _rather than because she actually imagined he would have an answer.

He let go of her shoulders, which he had still been gripping tightly, and shook his head. 'Who knows. But something doesn't fit here. Let's get back to McKay. At least we can give him the good news that he was right and there's no visible sign of a gate or inhabitants.'

She quirked an eyebrow. 'And that's _good_ news?'

'Well, no,' John conceded. 'But he'll still be pleased that he was right.' Then suddenly, breaking off his grin in the middle of its flourish, he froze. 'Look. There's something there. Right where we left McKay. I must be going blind not to have seen it.' He shook his head. Damn, he'd been too distracted by more pleasantly conflicting thoughts…

Elizabeth looked in the direction he was pointing, the direction they had come, and squinted her eyes. For a moment couldn't see what he was talking about. But then, slowly, gradually, she made out the lines, the shadowing, against the ground. Some kind of structure beneath the soil – nothing in nature was _that_ geometrical. Now that she had seen it, she wondered, like John, how she could ever have missed it.

The Colonel was already speaking through his radio to Rodney. '…well, have a look around, see if you can spot anything… No, I don't know, I'm not there am I?... Just shut up and look would you… Yes, that sounds exactly like what we want. Wait until we get there before you do anything… Well, obviously we'll hurry. We didn't come here for a picnic. Sheppard out.' He shut the radio off. 'Looks like McKay found some kind of entrance. Was obvious once he looked for it. Now we just have to hope that we can get it open – and that it's some use to us when we do.'


	7. Answers

* * *

**VII: Answers**

* * *

Rodney was more impatient than ever when they finally arrived back at where he was waiting for them. 'You took your time,' he snapped, by way of greeting, and Elizabeth had to bite her lip to stop herself retorting with just as much snark. There were moments when she understood all too well why people like the little redheaded Doctor would find him so frustrating to work with. Still, Elizabeth had her position to think about – something she hadn't managed all that well thus far today – and she didn't have the luxury of going around biting people's heads off. Not, of course, that she didn't make the odd exception. Like Kavanagh. She grinned slightly to herself at the memory of _that _showdown, and then listened to John protesting loudly, 'Well, I'd like to see _you _walk half as fast as we did!'

Before they could start bickering _again_ – and really, they were like a pair of bratty kids if you left them alone too long – Elizabeth broke in and asked, 'Did you feel an earth tremor down here too?'

Rodney nodded. 'Ah-huh. If I had anything even vaguely useful with me, I could tell you the strength, and point of origin, but…' He shrugged and opened his empty hands palm up. 'On a brighter note,' he added with sudden cheer, 'I found a power bar in my back pocket.'

'Great, McKay,' said John sarcastically, 'that should keep us alive for years.' He was starting to realise that the geeks back in Atlantis didn't seem about to save their sorry asses any time soon, and so he wanted to be _doing _something. Like looking at this entrance McKay had found. 'Well,' he urged, 'where is it?'

It was fortunate, really, that John, at least, had had some of his gear with him when they'd been zapped out of Atlantis, because Rodney and Elizabeth certainly had nothing of use. Elizabeth watched as John cleared away dust and pebbles from the trapdoor and then helped him lever it open with a mix of stubborn strength (mostly his) and some branches from a nearby tree. Soon, there gaped at their feet a square opening about three foot in diameter. John dug out a small flashlight from a pocket in his vest and shone its feeble beam down the hole, trying to gauge the depth of the drop beneath them. Elizabeth applied the more pragmatic method of dropping a pebble – and listening as it almost instantly hit the bottom. No big distance at all.

John slipped down the hole first, then Rodney – complaining all the way – and finally Elizabeth. There was no mistaking that the bunker had been built by the Ancients. In the wavering light of John's torch Elizabeth could make out the same smooth, neat lines that were so typical of the city they had come from. They found themselves in a medium-sized room, which apparently opened into a number of other rooms and a series of corridors.

Rodney's eyes positively gleamed in the torch's beam. 'Could be a ZPM,' he murmured happily to himself, his hunger vanishing in the presence of so much new technology.

John grabbed his arm and made him stand still for a minute. 'Could be _anything_, McKay_._ Who knows how long since the Ancients were here. Or what else has arrived since then.' The look on his face said clearly that he was thinking about the Wraith – and bugs.

Rodney nodded at him absently, then scurried around until he had the lights up and running. 'Power source,' he crowed gleefully.

The room was a veritable storehouse of Ancient technology. Panels, interfaces, and a hundred different gadgets crowded in on them on all sides, and it seemed to be the same in all the rooms that they wandered through – perhaps the entire complex was like that, and who knew how big it was. Elizabeth's pulse raced; it was a veritable treasure trove! She tried to imagine what a team or two of her scientists could make of this stuff, the things that they might accomplish! It made Rodney's uncertainty about the device that had brought them here pale into insignificance. It was as though everything the Ancients had ever developed, ever experimented with, was here underground. The possibilities…

She beamed at Rodney. 'Looks like your sphere might be the answer to all our problems after all, just not how you imagined.'

Suddenly another tremor shook the ground beneath their feet, distinctly stronger than the first. McKay, who had been caught in the middle of the room with nothing to hang on to, ended up on the floor with a doleful expression on his face and instant complaints about his back. Fair enough, and under normal circumstances John might have _considered _being sympathetic, but now he was definitely sure that something was badly wrong. It wasn't the tremors so much. He'd been on geologically unstable planets before. But this…

Elizabeth felt it too. It was as though the world around them was changing, altering. Not just the physical aspect of it, but something more. What had seemed so beautiful when she had arrived had become ordinary – if not downright unpleasant. The smooth lines of the Lantean architecture around her seemed to be losing their charm. It wasn't just because they were underground.

She bit her lip. 'There's something happening. I can feel―'

John nodded. 'I know. I can't place it, but―' He paused and glanced at her, a little embarrassed, 'It's getting kind of weird.'

'Yes… like it's lessening, or, I don't know.' Usually Elizabeth didn't have any trouble finding the words to say exactly what she meant, but now… Still, John would get the gist. 'It's like it's corrupting,' she added.

McKay, who had picked himself up the ground and stood there rubbing his back, glanced at them now. His face was suddenly alert. 'What did you just say?'

Elizabeth stared at his unexpected agitation. 'I said it seems different somehow. Like it's corrupting, I―'

The scientist waved at her to shut up, and chewed his bottom lip. 'Of course!' he exclaimed abruptly.

The other two glanced at each other, and then at him, and waited. Both had worked with him long enough to know that sooner or later he would share with them whatever genius was going on inside his brain. Still, he was taking his sweet time about it. 'McKay…' intoned John warningly.

The Canadian glared at him, then snapped, 'Look. Think about it. You have an item of obvious power, presumably potentially dangerous, hypothetically, right? Who knows what sort of things the Ancients were capable of developing. Now, you have that technology, but you need to test it. But you live in a city in the middle of an ocean. Where do you test it without anyone getting hurt? On the mainland? But there could still be effects. On another planet perhaps? But the Ancients were big on intergalactic ethics.'

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. 'Not in a lab in Atlantis?'

He shrugged. 'Some things, sure, we've found them. But what about the big stuff?'

John's eyes narrowed. 'Are you saying we've been sent to some kind of Ancient Area 51? Where they played with all the _really_ interesting toys?'

Rodney nodded. 'I mean, just look at this place! Who knows what could be down here.' He paused. 'But there's a problem. You said it's corrupting and although that's not the term I would use, I see what you mean. Well, that suggests that this place is artificial – which also makes sense. I mean, it's the perfect way of hiding it from the Wraith.'

Elizabeth shut her eyes, then opened them and looked piercingly at the scientist. 'Assuming you're right, why would the Ancients put the access to their R&D area in a device that also controls, or influences, minds?'

The physicist shrugged impatiently. 'How should I know why the Ancients did anything the way they did? The sphere could have a dozen different functions. It could wash clothes for all I know.' He looked suddenly tired. 'That's all I've got. Really. But if this is an Ancient Area 51, then I doubt we've used the right access codes. Which would explain the gradual deterioration. It's a failsafe against trespassers.'

'You mean that if someone back in Atlantis doesn't get us out of here, it won't matter how much cool stuff we find?' John looked frustrated.

Rodney just nodded. 'That's exactly what I mean. This place will dissolve around our ears, and us with it. No interesting tech, and no us. So if you don't mind, I have things to do.' He hurried off to search in other rooms with a kind of desperate hope hovered around his shoulders.

Elizabeth ran a hand over her eyes. It seemed as though nothing was going right today. She glanced up, exhausted, and found John watching her with one of those looks.

'Well, I think that made McKay's day,' he said cheerily enough. Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. Maybe it was just a brave front for her sake, or perhaps he had gotten used to the whole probability-of-possible-death thing. John tipped his head to one side and added, 'I have to say though, this place is definitely getting creepy.'

Elizabeth nodded. There had been no more tremors but the process of deterioration seemed to be continuing of its own accord. The very air seemed to be getting thinner somehow.

John was still looking at her and she felt herself warm under his gaze like a young girl. It was hardly the time or the place, but it was as though both of them had suddenly remembered that moment before the first tremor. On his face was his most annoying, most appealing expression, the one which had caught her heart up into her throat, and she suddenly dared feel the wild hope that everything might somehow turn out alright. And if they _were _going to die, though she refused out of principle to acknowledge that possibility, well, then she wanted to do it knowing that―

'Elizabeth…' he said, just like he had done on the crest of the hill, and the tone that he used, so deep, so aching, made her eyes shine and she took a tentative stop closer to him, and reached out her hand towards his face―


	8. A Thing of Remarkable Beauty

* * *

_Previously: 'Elizabeth…' he said, just like he had done on the crest of the hill, and the tone that he used, so deep, so aching, made her eyes shine and she took a tentative stop closer to him, and reached out her hand towards his face―_

* * *

**VIII: A Thing of Remarkable Beauty**

* * *

God only knew what kind of gossip did the rounds of the city after they had been brought back. It was Zelenka who eventually got the device to work, with the help of Meaghan and her ATA gene and her knowledge of the language. The Czech had managed to reverse the command-paths of both journeys and bring them all back in one go. He even cleaned up the process a little – which meant no headaches or falling around on the ground. And so there they had appeared, in the blink of an eye, just like magic: Rodney cradling a new device in his hands and studying it with fierce desperation... and John and Elizabeth staring into one another's eyes like a pair of bewitched lovers. Entranced, her hand curved around his cheek, right there in the middle of the lab surrounded by civilians and military types alike. It had taken them a moment to even notice they had been moved.

Then the acute embarrassment had set in.

Oh, there had been a debriefing afterwards, and the obligatory stint in the infirmary, but Elizabeth had only heard the general gist of everything that was said to her. She had acknowledged the things that Teyla had done in her absence, which wasn't much, because they hadn't exactly been gone that long. She had accepted Meaghan's passionate apology, thrice over. She had taken in the fact that McKay wanted to do more research on the device but doubted it would be any use unless they could somehow work out the proper access codes. She had expressed her sorrow that perhaps the most important find they had ever made thus remained frustratingly out of their reach. In fact, she had kept herself together quite well, all things considered. Then she had finally, blessedly, miraculously escaped, with her face carefully expressionless, back to her computer, where she had sat and stared at that never-finished, ridiculous email. She wished she had never gotten out of bed.

How long she sat there, she didn't know, but it was well into the night when the sound of a gentle knock, and the whirr of the doors opening, woke her from her reverie. It was John. He carried two mugs of coffee and smiled at her until she knew instinctively that it was going to be all right.

She left the coffee untouched on the desk and stood and simply looked at him. 'John...' she said, and heard clearly in her own voice an admission of the feelings that she had otherwise refused to confess. This time, when she reached out her hand, it reached his face and nobody whisked them away. And this time his eyes grew soft and he titled his head down to kiss her just _so,_ and months of feelings fell into place...

* * *

Some hours later, Elizabeth rose and tiptoed barefoot to the windows that looked out from her bedroom across the eternal ocean outside. The sound of John's steady breathing behind her and the shape of his sleeping form amongst her sheets warmed her to the core. She hadn't felt this centred since she didn't know when, and she let herself enjoy the view outside the window and the cool salty air on her skin. The night sky above Atlantis was a thing of remarkable beauty. Eternally broad and black, and pierced with an uncountable quantity of stars, it hung above the city and curved down on all sides to melt into the ocean... She breathed in the expanse of it all, and the life..

At some stage, she realised she still hadn't pressed _send _on that email. But somehow it didn't matter any more. She was too busy savouring the moment to care.

* * *

**The End**

* * *

_Thanks: First, thank you to the twit who lives in the room above me and gets his jollies out of doing wheelies around his room on his office-chair in the wee small hours of the morning. You know who you are! It sounds like an rhino on roller-skates. Without you, I would never have gotten out of bed at a time of day when there is nothing else to do but write – and so would never have started this story. You irritate the hell out of me, but I guess I owe you!_

_But most importantly, thank you so incredibly much to all the great people who reviewed this story while I was writing it: SenseOfTime, Cptn.Suz, MCross, Fex, fragglebo, E.Nagrom, ginsensu & tripwasmyhero2161. You are just the best ever! Especially SenseOfTime & MCross - perhaps I'll think up a sequel with the sphere..._


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